


Declaration

by starsmckirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post Into Darkness, aviaphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsmckirk/pseuds/starsmckirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I love you. I love you so fucking much Bones and it scares me but it also kinda makes me feel really fucking out of my mind happy because I never thought this stupid god damn universe would let me feel this way but it did. And I love you.”</p>
<p>This is the story of a declaration of love, and how it can change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Declaration

It hadn’t been running from angry natives on Nibiru and jumping off an insanely high cliff. It hadn’t been the attack on Starfleet headquarters. It hadn’t been Spock, Uhura and Jim almost dying on Qo’nos. It hadn’t been getting way too cozy with that torpedo. It hadn’t been Khan, and his ice-cold rage. It hadn’t been crashing towards earth without any power to keep them from doing so.

 

No, it wasn’t until James Tiberius Kirk was brought to him in a body bag that Leonard McCoy’s world had crashed and burned.

 

Of course, in the end it didn’t. Because in the end Jim hadn’t died, in the end he had opened those eyes and suddenly everything seemed to be back to normal.

 

Except it wasn’t.

 

San Francisco was in ruins, Starfleet was a mess and the Enterprise was broken and cracked all over. And he could still see the shadow of something dark in Jim’s eyes; he could still see how it all haunted him.

 

And Leonard, he was a fucking mess. You’d think sleep would come easy for a man who worked two weeks straight, trying to bring back his best friend from the dead. You’d think it would come easy for someone who felt so tired, all the way down to his bones, but it didn’t.

 

The dark shadows under his eyes were becoming permanent and the aches in his body were consistent.

 

One year on earth, they had told them. One year till the Enterprise would be up and running. Shiny and new and ready for her captain to come reclaim his chair.

 

Through Jim Leonard had come to appreciate the stars, the years together at the academy and then on the Enterprise had shown Leonard that it was all worth it.

 

But lately, he felt himself dreading going back into the black. Back into the void that had seemed to suck all the light from his life, back into the space where Jim had died, just as his father before him.

 

But Leonard was a psychologist as well as a medical doctor now, he knew it would get better when he got up there. He knew he would find his enthusiasm again, he knew he would as long as he had Jim. But it would be hard. But he would do it. He would do it for Jim.

 

* * *

 

 

Three months after Jim had woken up he, Leonard, Spock, Nyota and Scotty were headed to the east coast for a meeting with some Starfleet officers. Meetings like this would usually have been held in San Francisco but repairs to Starfleet head quarters were still going on.

 

They were going to take a shuttle, transporting on earth has been off since Khan, there was still work being done there to ensure the security of the federation. Leonard hadn’t thought much about it; shuttles hadn’t really been a problem for him since those first months at the academy. Jim had helped him with that, he had sat next to him during endless late-night simulations, urging him to keep trying, to keep believing that it really wasn’t as bad as it seemed. And it had worked, he still got nervous, but the nauseating terror he had once experienced was practically gone.

 

That’s why he didn’t think much of it when he strapped into his window seat, Jim beside him and then Spock beside Jim. He pulled out a pad and started reading some documents, zoning out from Nyota and Scotty’s conversation being held in the seats opposite them.

 

He read for a while, hearing his crewmates’ chatter in the background, waiting for the shuttle to start.

 

Because that was the problem. The motors weren’t actually on yet, they were still waiting for some luggage to be loaded into the back.

 

“Ready for lift off” the operator’s voice sounded and Leonard found his stomach clenching uncomfortably. He put down his padd and instead concentrated on the conversation being held around him.

 

“Okay but what about this? How about we do like a joint library and chess room?” He heard Jim’s joyful voice suggest.

 

“A logical choice captain, since both activities are performed in silence, although it would seem unpractical with books, since we have access to everything via our computer system.”

 

“Oh come on Spock we’ve been through this thousands of times! Books smell nice! They’re nice to hold and flick through, it’s not the same thing as a padd.”

 

“But where exactly would this room go?” Nyota asked “We can’t just remove someone’s quarters now can we?”

 

Scotty then said something that Leonard could not pick up on, since the shuttle was now lifting off, pushing them all into their seats. Leonard felt his throat go dry and his breath growing shorter. Suddenly the space was way too hot, and the harness was all too constricting. He imagined all the thousands of meters that stretched from his feet down to the ground, and how they were rapidly growing as San Francisco grew smaller and smaller beneath them.

 

He felt his hands starting to shake as he imagined them soaring closer and closer towards the darkness and dangers of space.

 

“Leonard?” His head snapped up to meet Nyota’s worried gaze. “Are you okay?” she asked.

 

He drew a shaky breath and tried to say something as a wave of nausea rolled through his stomach.

 

“Bones? Are you all right?”

 

He turned and met Jim’s eyes, the eyes that had always brought him comfort and steadiness. But it was hard looking at them without remembering that horrible time he believed he would never be able to see them again.

 

He choked out a broken “No” as his breathing rapidly increased.

 

“Okay want to get some space?”

 

He nodded and reached toward his harness with shaky hands, but was stopped when Jim’s steady ones came up to unbuckle it instead.

 

“Okay, come on Bones. Let’s go calm down.”

 

It was a thing they did. Take care of each other in private, that was. Sure Leonard had had to deal with Jim bleeding out in the middle of medbay but after that, when Jim was stitched up and healing, he would close the curtains around him and check him over one more time. He’d let his steady hands run over Jim, calming and comforting. He’d murmur under his breath, he’d close the world around them, inflicting a sense of calm and comfort.

 

So that’s why Jim grabbed hold of him, and on shaky legs hauled him over to a seat in the back of the almost empty shuttle, where there were no windows.

 

He was breathing fast now, all too fast. He was dizzy, shaky and sick to his stomach.

 

“Okay sit down Bones.” Jim pushed Leonard’s head down between his knees. “Shh that’s it, just breath with me okay?”

 

Jim knelt down on the floor beside him and started rubbing his hand up and down Leonard’s back.

 

“Better?” he asked after a while.

 

“A little.”

 

Leonard sat back up and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes against the nausea still surging through him.

 

They sat in silence for a while until he popped one eye open and glanced over at Jim, whose bright, blue eyes were already intensely focused on Leonard.

 

“What brought that on Bones? I thought you were over it all?”

 

“Apparently not” he sighed, “I may throw up on you.”

 

Jim chuckled, finally averting his gaze. “Yeah well it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.” He said, “You want to go back to the others?”

 

Leonard swallowed against the tightness in his throat that arose when he thought of going anywhere near that window again.

 

“Uhm, I think I’ll just stay here.”

 

“Okay well scoot over, I’ll sit with you.”

 

Leonard slid over to the other seat and Jim plopped down beside him, relaxing in the seat.

 

“I know it hasn’t really been the same since you know… The whole Khan mess. But we’re all right? Aren’t we?”

 

“Yeah Jim. We’re fine.”

 

Jim clapped his hand on Bones’ shoulder, a sad smile on his face.

 

“Suppose so Bones.”

 

* * *

 

 

The meetings were fine, long and tiresome, but fine. The shuttle ride back was not. In fact it was horrible. Leonard was in the bathroom, throwing up, within a matter of minutes after take of. And it wouldn’t stop. Jim sat next to him on the floor all the way, rubbing his back and trying to distract him with stories from their academy days while Nyota went to get glasses of water for him to carefully sip.

 

When the shuttle finally landed all Leonard wanted to do was to get off the shuttle, but his legs were shaking so much that he could barely stand.

 

“Spock” Jim gestured towards his first officer “Help me get him to the hover car outside.”

 

“Dammit Jim I’m fine.”

 

Leonard looked up at Jim from where he was still sitting on the bathroom floor. His friend’s eyes were filled with worry and sadness, something that did not suit the always energetic and positive Jim Kirk well.

 

“Bullshit. And you know it. We should really be taking you to the hospital.”

 

“No. It’s not that bad. Just…just take me home Jim?”

 

And those worried sad eyes were back.

 

“Yeah. I can do that Bones.” He turned to Spock again. “Help me?”

 

Leonard had one arm around Spock’s slender yet muscular shoulders and the other around Jim’s oh so familiar, strong shoulders as the two of them helped him out of the shuttle and into the hover car.

 

He felt weak and shaky from the experience, and what he really wanted was to get home and go to bed.

 

He and Jim sat in silence as the automated hover care took them back to Leonard’s apartment.

 

* * *

 

 

“Really Jim, it’s fine.”

 

“You just sit there and I’ll go get you something comfy to sleep in”

 

Leonard sighed and sank down into the bed, still feeling the lingering terror and sickness from that shuttle flight from hell. It had never been that bad, not even before Jim.

 

“Here.” Jim handed him a glass of water and placed a t-shirt and a clean pair of boxers on the bed beside him. “You’ve gotta drink some.”

 

“So now you’re the doctor huh?”

 

“I may not be a doctor but I know that puking your guts out for four hours will leave you dehydrated.”

 

He wouldn’t argue, he was too tired, so he accepted the glass and drank slowly, taking small sips. He felt Jim sink down on the bed beside him. He finished his water in silence and reached to put it on the nightstand.

 

He glanced at Jim and walked into the bathroom to freshen up and change.

 

When he was done he walked back out, in a soft, white t-shirt and a pair of boxers.

 

“I’m beat kid, you can crash here if you want.”

 

Jim looked over at him from where he was still sitting on the edge of the bed.

 

“It’s two in the afternoon Bones.”

 

Leonard raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and walked over to collapse on the bed.

 

“I guess a nap wouldn’t hurt.” Jim said.

 

Leonard saw Jim turn and start to head towards the living room where the one, rather uncomfortable and small couch stood.

 

“Kid.” He sighed. “Get over here. That couch is horrible and you know it.”

 

Jim smiled that soft, private smile he saved only for his closest friends.

 

“Thanks.” He pulled off his uniform, leaving him in his undershirt and boxers, and crawled into bed next to his friend.

 

Leonard turned his back to Jim and ordered the lights off and the blinds to close, leaving them in darkness.

 

“Did I mess it all up” He heard a quiet voice behind him.

 

“What are you talking ‘bout Jim?”

 

“You know... the whole dying thing. It kinda destroyed everything didn’t it?”

 

Silence.  That’s what space is; at least that’s what Leonard had thought. But Jim was so loud, so noisy; with him at your side space was seldom silent. But when Jim had disappeared, that silence had been so deafening, so painfully present, that it had almost broken Leonard. And he couldn’t have that happening again. He wouldn’t manage it.

 

“Yeah.” Leonard said. “It kinda did kid.”

 

Leonard closed his eyes to the silent darkness. He lay still for a couple of moments until he felt movements behind him. Jim came up close and pressed his face into Leonard’s shoulder, his hand coming p to grab Leonard’s elbow. Still no words, just the feeling of Jim’s familiar chest against his back and his right leg pulled up and over Leonard’s own, long legs. Leonard though he might cry. Instead, they fell asleep, two lost ones in the silence and darkness, clinging to each other, trying to find solace.

 

* * *

 

 

One month later and they were finally standing there; him and Jim, in front of the fixed up, repaired and repainted Enterprise.

 

He should be happy, he really should. The ship was fixed, they had been handed a five-year mission, they were going places were humans had never been before. His father would be proud.

 

Except he wasn’t happy. His legs felt like running away from the huge death trap that stood before him while his mind wanted him to curl into a little ball just like he used to do when he was seven and afraid of the dark woods. He felt like he was crashing inwards, slowly and devastatingly, and there was nothing from keeping him to do so.

 

Leonard had never been tactile. That’s why he couldn’t hide that look in his eyes when Jim looked over at him with piercing blue eyes from where he was standing beside him underneath the massive ship.

 

Jim took his eyes of the Enterprise for the first time since they’ve gotten here.

 

The bustling of busy engineers faded as Jim stepped up real close to Leonard, his face blocking his whole view.

 

“Listen, Bones. I don’t want you to…what I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to do this if you want to”

 

“Jim…”

 

“No seriously Bones, I see the fucking fear in your eyes every time anyone mentions something about space. And I don’t want you doing anything that will make you feel that way.”

 

Leonard averted his gaze from where it had been focusing on Jim and looked up at the big ship again.

 

“It’s not space I’m afraid of.” He closed his eyes briefly as he tried to control his emotions. “I’m afraid of loosing you. And it feels like that’s very likely once I go up there as your CMO, hell it already happened once and I’m not going to let it happen again.”

 

“Bones I…”

 

Leonard turned to face Jim once again, who was standing there looking at him, mouth slightly open and blue eyes glowing.

 

“Listen kid it’s all right, I’ll come. Of course I’ll come with you, it won’t be pleasant at first but I’ll get used to it again.”

 

“That’s not how I want it to be Bones, that’s not how we imagined it.”

 

“Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned them to. Believe me, I have my fair experience with things not working out.”

 

“Yeah. I guess so.”

 

Jim’s words were empty, and so were Leonard’s, but for now they would make it work. In the end? Leonard didn’t know. With Jim, he couldn’t think that way, everyday could be the end and that was no way of living.

 

* * *

 

 

The last night on solid ground. The last night sleeping in familiar terran air. The last night without a dark, cold, empty void outside Leonard’s window instead of the now familiar streets of San Francisco.

 

He’d spend it alone, he had decided. Well maybe not completely alone; there was a bottle of fine bourbon waiting for him in the almost empty liquor cabinet. He surveyed the apartment; it was almost all empty now. Not that it had been particularly full before; Leonard hadn’t had a lot of possessions since he left Georgia and got onto that shuttle all those years ago. The couple of books he owned together with some pictures of him and Jim were now packed away in a box.

 

He sat down heavily on the couch. The heavy pressure of fear and anxiety started to slowly creep up on him as he put his head in his hands, leaning forward and staring down onto the floor.

 

He had to do this. He was a doctor. And a good one too, they needed him up there. Jim needed him. But oh how he wished he didn’t.

 

He sat there for who knows how long until there was a faint knock on the door.

 

He walked over and opened it, not really knowing who to expect (but really he did), and saw Jim standing in the hallway, wearing that same leather jacket from when they had first met and looking much more like a lost, Iowa farm boy than a Starfleet captain.

 

“Jim? What are you doing here kid?”

 

The blond stepped out of the light hallway and into the dark of Leonard’s apartment, where his eyes seemed to glow in an even more intense shade of blue.

 

“Listen Bones” he said as he came even closer, Leonard feeling the warmth of the San Francisco night radiating off him. “I just need you to know this. Before we go up there. I need you to know two things.”

 

“All right.” Leonard blinked, not really knowing where this was going.

 

“First of all.” Jim closed the gap between them even more so all Leonard could see were the intense eyes are furrowed eyebrows of his best friend “I do not ever want you to do something you don’t want to do just because of me.”

 

“Look, Jim-“ Leonard interrupted.

 

“No, Bones, you listen to me okay? If you don’t want to go up there, if it makes you physically ill, I do not want you doing it. And I do not want you protesting, that’s an order.”

 

“All right Jim, okay. I’m listening.” He sighed.

 

“And secondly” the captain continued as he took a deep breath, gaze not wavering, “I love you. I love you so fucking much Bones and it scares me but it also kinda makes me really fucking out of my mind happy because I never thought this stupid god damn universe would let me feel this way but it did. And I love you.”

 

And there they were, two simple kids in the middle of an expanding, living, burning universe that didn’t really give a damn about how they felt. But still, some force, some kind of insane strike of chance had brought them together. A blue eyed miracle born in the dark of space and a Georgia boy with the warmest eyes there were standing inches from each other, tasting the fraction of a life that could be oh so wonderful.

 

“What?”

 

“I love you. You don’t have to answer. I just, need you to know that because it’s so fucking precious to me.”

 

“Kid.” Jim looked down at his shoes only to look straight back up again when Leonard came even closer and quietly murmured “Jim.”

 

“Yeah Bones?”

 

“I love you too. Hell, from the moment I saw you fearlessly take a swig from my flask I’ve known that you’re all that I’m meant to have. And space aint gonna stop me from being with you Jim, never. I’m coming with you and I don’t care how stubborn you are because I’m even more so and I’m not giving up on you kid, not that easily.”

 

“Oh god Bones…” Jim leaned his forehead against Leonard’s, their noses brushing against each other. “I though I’d actually… Well I don’t know what I would have done if you would have stayed here, I don’t think I actually would have made it up.” Jim’s voice was barely a whisper as the broken confession leaked out into the dark room.

 

“I gotcha kid,” Leonard spoke quietly as their chests pressed up against each other, “Always.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a year later and Leonard can still feel a slight tingle in his stomach as he stares out on the darkness outside as he stands behind the captain’s chair on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. But then he looks down, slightly to his left, and meets Jim’s eyes and all that is disease and danger and darkness and silence is forgotten.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Comments appreciated as always xx


End file.
